A Girl's Gotta Eat!

Cookbook Marketplace (a source for many of my favorite cookbooks) is offering 50% off all titles from now until the end of the year! I've already mentioned several titles here in previous posts that you should definitely check out (Holly Clegg, Betty Sims), and I'm happy to offer any assistance in looking at other titles if you have questions (I love Tables of Content from Birmingham). This is a great time to stock your own shelf as well as pick up some great gifts! I'm already adding titles to my wishlist...

I don’t know about your family, but Thanksgiving with my family is an all-day affair filled with preparing pies, turkey, and trimmings, watching some football, and getting everything ready for that moment when we all sit down at the table and eat until our pants begin to feel perhaps a little uncomfortable. All that prep work makes us hungry long before that button thingy on the turkey pops (even if all we’re doing is watching someone else)! And so, usually I bring some sort of appetizer to tide us over until the big event. This year, not knowing when exactly we were eating, I opted to try 2 new recipes: Greek Layered Dip and Beer Cheese Spread. And here I will toot my own horn (Toot, toot!) because I think they were both quite delicious. The layered dip was like your traditional Mexican 7-layer dip that has guacamole, beans, cheese, what have you, but instead has hummus, tzatziki sauce, ground lamb, feta and some tasty veggies. The Beer Cheese Spread was easy to whip up, made plenty...

And by Guinea pigs, I mean friends who are ever so nice as to let me experiment and try out a new recipe on them. (Thanks again, by the way.) Tonight’s menu was Greek Shrimp Linguini, salad, rolls, and a very tasty chocolate/banana/peanut butter pie that I’ll need to get the recipe for. I spotted the pasta recipe several months ago and decided it was high time to finally try it. Plus, I figure with it being Thanksgiving week, we’re going to be dining on plenty of poultry, and seafood would be a nice change of pace.   I thought it was quite scrumptious and not difficult at all. We used Barefoot Pinot Grigio for the white wine, and I may have sprinkled in just a little extra dry mustard. The recipe only calls for 8 ounces of linguini, but that seemed like it wouldn’t be nearly enough for the 2 pounds of shrimp, so I went ahead and cooked the entire 16-ounce package of pasta. Then I tossed just a little over half with the shrimp to serve, and packed up the unused noodles with the le...

Ok, so the recipe title is actually Strawberry-Almond Thumbprint Cookies, but I thought they were delightful, and I substituted cherry preserves for the strawberry (an excellent decision on my part, if I say so myself.) Other than the one substitution, the recipe is pretty straight forward. I will give you a heads-up, though. I refrigerated the dough after mixing it up because it looked sort of "crumbly." I wouldn't advise doing so...the butter re-hardens and makes it quite a bit more difficult to roll into balls. I made them for my Thursday night book club after I was late last month due to birthday brownies for Mike. I'll even share a few tomorrow with my co-workers since I had some left over. Keep an eye out for Junior League of Wilmington's new book, which is where I found this recipe, at Cookbook Marketplace . It's definitely a must-have. There a twelve chapters/menus-one for each month of the year! Strawberry-Almond Thumbprint Cookies Cookies 1 cup ...

You may have noticed a theme on recent food magazine covers: Thanksgiving is near, and pie recipes are abundant! All the pie photography gave one of my co-workers an idea. Why not have a pie potluck, with everyone bringing something different. We even decided for some people to bring savory pies so we could have an entire lunch of pies! For my part, I decided to try a new recipe out of one of the magazines that inspired us in the first place: Martha Stewart Living . It was my first-ever Martha recipe, but her recipe for Apple Crostata with Cheddar Crust called my name from the beginning. Having never made a Martha Stewart recipe before this, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was expecting something that tasty, but a headache to make. I am happy to report I was pleasantly surprised. The recipe was simple enough; the part I usually consider the hardest part of homemade pie (the crust) was made in the food processor, and you don't have to worry about a lattice top or pretty cru...

Mike’s been in the mood for salmon of some kind, and as luck would have it, I recently ran across a new way to prepare salmon that I was eager to try. It initially appealed to me for several reasons, mainly because · it has feta cheese, so it must be delicious; · it was a low-calorie meal that seemed like it would still be filling; and · it seemed easy to make. I am happy to report that all my expectations were exceeded. I was a little concerned with cutting the salmon in half to stuff, as we have tried cutting our own salmon portions before and mostly succeeded in mangling them, but the fantastic meat counter girl at Kroger offered to not only cut my 2 bigger fillets into 4 portions, but also to slice them for stuffing. She actually cut little pockets in each, which isn’t exactly what the recipe calls for (see my pic below), but it was a nice start and did help when Mike finished cutting them at home. The only things I did different from the recipe was to use shallots instead of red...

Okay, so technically this isn't a new recipe, because Mike and I make it all the time. It's still new to you (hopefully), and Emily's been wanting to try it, so we invited the fam over for Halloween dinner and trick-or-treatings. I made this Cream of Poblano Soup and a favorite stand-by: Potato Soup. The Cream of Poblano recipe can be found in Dallas Dish (check it out at Cookbook Marketplace ). Before puréeing .. Here's one recipe we make just as-is, no need for any tweaks or changes. I take that back...we don't stir the cilantro into the entire pot of soup, opting instead to sprinkle into our individual bowls. Some people are predisposed to dislike cilantro, so serving it this way would be a safer bet for a crowd, anyway. Make sure you pick out really good, blemish-free chiles. Bruises and dark spots can make the entire pot not-so-great. The spice really varies per batch...we've had some that weren't spicy at all, one that was too spicy for me that ...